


The Night Before Christmas

by PenguinofProse



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Best Friends to Lovers, Christmas Eve, F/M, Festive smut with feelings, Modern AU, Roommates, Secret Santa, festive fluff, smut with feelings, you weren't expecting that tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:41:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28193388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: In which Bellamy is very much in love with his best friend and roommate.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 27
Kudos: 200
Collections: Bellarke-Mas Secret Santa





	The Night Before Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [burninghoneyatdusk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burninghoneyatdusk/gifts).



> That awkward moment when your secret Santa requests modern AU. So... here goes. Bellamy and Clarke as pining best friends and roommates. And I realised after I wrote this that I was still in canonverse smut mode where condoms aren't really a thing but please remember that safe sex is important in the real world... Happy reading!

What do a librarian and a surgeon have in common?

It sounds like the opening of a bad joke, Bellamy thinks. And yet it's a question he's asked himself approximately eighteen times a day for the last five years or so.

The way he sees it, the answer ought to be _nothing_. Even after all these years as best friends and roommates, he's pretty certain he and Clarke actually have nothing in common beyond their address. Their upbringings and careers are totally different. They have different taste in food, entertainment, and hobbies.

They even have totally different personalities on a basic level – head versus heart.

And yet he's still in love with her. However many times he tries to tell himself that they'd make a terrible couple, that they don't have enough common ground to make it work, that he'd end up devastated, heartbroken and alone, he just cannot stop craving a real romantic relationship with her.

So that's why he's putting up a Christmas tree. That might not be a very obvious chain of reasoning, but bear with it. Bellamy loves Clarke. Clarke loves Christmas, but tries very hard not to – between work and her messy family situation and her desire to appear pragmatic and sensible at all times, it's as if she doesn't feel she's allowed to get overexcited about Christmas like a small child.

That's why Bellamy's putting up the tree. It's Christmas Eve now, and he figures it's past time it was done. So he's fixing the decorations while Clarke works her late emergency room shift. Once he's done the tree he'll probably put up some tinsel, wrap the precious couple of gifts he's bought for her, maybe even pop out to the twenty-four hour grocery store and see if they have some soggy mince pies.

In short, he's determined to do everything he can to show her it's OK to have a happy Christmas.

…...

Clarke's out later than Bellamy expected. This happens – being an emergency room surgeon is hardly a predictable job. And he knows she always volunteers to work as hard as possible over the festive period, to distract herself from her father's death and her mother's role in it.

So he's not worried about her safety, or anything. But he is worried about her mental state, and most of all he's simply missing her. He was hoping they'd be sitting in front of a history documentary together by now. He's got a good one recorded about the history of antibiotics – a perfect compromise between their very different interests, he likes to think.

He keeps himself busy. Once the tree and the tinsel and the giftwrap are done, he cuts a few childish little snowflakes to stick in the windows. That seems like the sort of harmless fun that will lift Clarke's mood. Then he vacuums the whole apartment, finds a couple of large winter socks that can serve as stockings stuffed with candies, and prepares the sprouts for tomorrow.

It's when he finds himself searching the internet for yule log recipes that he realises the situation might have got away from him slightly.

And after that, when he ends up making two dozen miniature yule logs with bark-textured frosting?

Yeah. Clarke's late, and he's worried.

By the time she stumbles exhausted through the door, the apartment is spotless and smells sweetly of cinnamon.

"You've been busy." She comments lightly, shucking her coat.

"Yeah. Wanted the place to be ready for Christmas by the time you got home."

She smiles a tired smile, then walks over to hug him fiercely. Huh. This is an interesting development. They're good at hugs, and share them reasonably often, but they don't normally go for an intense cuddle every time one of them gets home late.

"You OK?" He asks softly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Thank you so much for doing all this – it's lovely to come home to. It's been a tough one."

"You want to sit down and tell me all about it? I can fetch you a miniature yule log." He offers. He did want to watch that documentary, but he wants to hear about whatever is upsetting Clarke more.

"A miniature yule log?" She asks.

"Yeah. I made cinnamon cookies too. You want anything?"

She laughs, and it's a slightly heavier laugh than usual, but a laugh nonetheless. "A miniature yule log sounds great. Thanks."

With that, she sinks to the couch, and Bellamy heads for the kitchen. It's one of the things he likes the most about living with Clarke, that they take care of each other like this. Sure, she works long shifts more often than he does, because he's only a crappy librarian. But she still fusses over him when he's had a bad day, and between the two of them, he thinks it balances out pretty nicely.

By the time he makes it back to the living room, Clarke is lying back on the couch with her eyes closed.

"Clarke?" He whispers, trying not to wake her if she's asleep.

She's not asleep. She makes that quite clear, blinking her eyes open again and taking the plate from his hands.

"So this is a miniature yule log?" She prompts.

He frowns. Obviously it's a miniature yule log. And obviously she's doing what she often does when she's upset about something – trying to change the subject, focusing on trivialities rather than telling him what's actually on her mind.

"You want to tell me more about work?" He counters gently.

She sighs, rolls her shoulders. She takes a large bite of yule log, chews slowly. And then she turns to him with sad eyes.

"We had the victim of a hate crime come in just before I was due to leave. Acid attack. She's going to be fine but her family were all so upset and I couldn't leave before I'd listened to them talk it out, could I? It's horrible. Why would someone do that on Christmas Eve?"

He nods in understanding, swallows down his bite of yule log. "You're right. It's disgusting. But I know you did the right thing by being there for them."

She smiles sadly at him. "Thanks, Bellamy."

"Any time."

They eat their cake in silence for a couple of moments. Bellamy wonders whether Clarke is falling asleep or dwelling on what she saw at work, or something else entirely. He knows her pretty well, after all these years, but he still cannot quite read her mind.

She's thinking about neither of those things, it turns out.

"You see, this is why we're so great together." She muses, waving at him with half a miniature yule log.

He feels like he's missed a step somewhere. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you and me. We're such a great team. I keep a well-stocked and organised kitchen, you use it to make yule logs. You clean and decorate the apartment for me while I'm at work. And then you even have sensible opinions about the behaviour of hateful idiots? What more could a girl want?"

He takes a bite, eats it carefully. It's not that he didn't already realise Clarke likes living with him – she obviously wouldn't stay if she didn't. But he's never heard her say it with such ease or conviction before now.

"You think we're good together?" He repeats, somewhat awed. He loves her, of course, but he's spent the last few years very firmly convinced that they'd be _terrible_ together, if ever he could convince her to give it a try. They have nothing in common, remember?

"Yeah. We're great. We see eye to eye on the important things like compassion, and then we balance each other out everywhere else. I love living with you – all your documentaries and taking me hiking stops me stagnating in a little bubble of hospital work and drawing."

"I love living with you too." He says, throat sticky for reasons that go far beyond chocolate frosting. "I guess you're right. We balance each other out."

"But we have the most important things in common." She insists, firm.

He makes a humming noise, swallows the rest of his miniature yule log. He's not quite sure what to do, now. Since he's out of food to keep him busy, he's worried he might start letting unwise words out of his mouth instead. He's always had an unfortunate habit of letting his heart do the talking, giving way to emotional impulses rather than adopting a sensible course of action.

Clarke's done eating, too. She's looking at him expectantly, brow raised as if to remind him that she spoke last.

"Do you ever wonder if we'd make a good couple?"

He hears himself ask the question, even though he doesn't entirely remember _choosing_ to ask it. But it's out there, now, and all he can do is stare at Clarke and wait for her answer.

Well, he can do that _and_ wonder what it would taste like to lick the chocolate frosting from her lips.

"Objectively speaking we'd make a great couple." Clarke says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Like I said, we have the same priorities and our interests and careers, although very different, are compatible. Our genetic material would make for healthy offspring."

She's misunderstood him, it seems. She doesn't do that very often, and he can't help but feel she's chosen a poor moment to try it now. He doesn't want some objective analysis of their different genes, thank you very much.

He wants to know what she feels in her gut.

"No, I mean – with you heart." He corrects her, staring fixatedly at that frosting on her lips because he dares not meet her eyes. "Do you ever -?"

He never gets to finish that question. He never gets to finish it because Clarke cuts him off with a kiss, gentle and tender, almost _tentative_. He tries to deepen it, tries to taste that tantalising frosting, but she pulls away before he gets the chance.

"Is this OK?" She whispers, so soft he can barely hear her.

"More than OK." He confirms, smiling so broadly his cheeks are aching.

He reaches out to cup a hand about the back of her neck, eases slowly closer to her. She's staring at him, hard, with a look on her face he cannot quite make sense of.

"Clarke?" He prompts, stroking a thumb over the soft hair on the back of her neck.

"Are we really doing this?"

He swallows. He thinks back over that conversation, of her insistence that they'd make a great couple regardless of their differences. And he thinks most of all that he will always trust Clarke, no matter how scared he may be to leap into the unknown.

"Yeah. I think we'll make a really great couple."

She laughs, then, and leans in to kiss him again. This time there's much more confidence to the kiss and more eagerness, too. She tastes like chocolate and excitement and everything else that is good about Christmas, and it has his heart beating urgently in his chest.

Things escalate, slowly but steadily. His hand settles on her waist, then slides down over the curves of her butt. She breaks away from his lips for a moment to trail kisses down his neck.

"You know, when I imagined this, I imagined me wearing something cuter." She murmurs against his skin.

He chuckles. He can just see Clarke planning an outfit for this occasion ever so carefully. But more than anything, he's chuckling from the sheer giddy joy of knowing she's fantasised about this moment before now, just as he has.

"You look lovely." He tells her, because he always thinks she looks lovely.

She snorts, draws back to look him in the eye. "I'm wearing the gross sweats I changed into when I took off my scrubs." She points out, totally accurate, utterly scornful.

"I'm wearing sweatpants too." He argues. "Don't worry about it. Another time we can hook up in formal wear. Or buy his and hers lingerie."

She giggles, smiles softly. "I'll hold you to that."

They get back on with the kissing, then. And Clarke's moving rather more confidently, he notes, now that she's finished fretting about her state of dress. She's a funny one, he thinks affectionately. She likes to show the world this tough, calm exterior, but she's in no sense immune to insecurity.

He feels her confident hands slip up his shirt, her firm touch as she starts exploring the muscles of his back. He decides to help her out, sheds his shirt and then sits there, smirking at her in challenge.

She huffs a little and matches him, whipping her shirt straight off over her head, and revealing a pair of rather generous breasts in a lacy deep purple bra.

He gulps. When she was fretting about what she was wearing, he never imagined finding _this_ underneath. Sure, he already knew she owned undergarments like this – he's seen them in the laundry often enough. But he never dared to imagine she just wore them on a daily basis, popped them on to go to work every day. Has she really been looking like _this_ underneath her shirts every single second that he's known her?

He gulps again, tries to swallow the lump in his throat. It's a good job Clarke's acting like this is more than a one-time-thing, he decides. He's absolutely certain he would never be able to go back to living politely and chastely with her, now he knows she's always dressed like this beneath her clothes. He'd be incapable of so much as passing her in the kitchen without praying for a flash of coloured lace.

"My face is up here." She reminds him, tone teasing.

He snaps out of it, apologises with a self-conscious laugh. "Sorry. I know. You have a beautiful face. But I've seen your face every day for the last five years and – well – this is new."

She chuckles, sits up a little straighter, angles her chest towards him. "You want to touch?"

He does want to touch. He _very much_ wants to touch. He reaches for her, curls one hand around her neck to bring her back in for another kiss, uses the other to cradle a breast through the cup of her bra. Even supported like this, it feels heavy in his hand, a little too big for him to hold all at once, her pert nipple tickling his palm.

He moans into the kiss. He's got big hands, but even so he can just tell her tits are going to be spilling out of his hands the moment he takes that bra off.

He's not only concentrating on her breasts. He's kissing her deeply, too, tangling his other hand in her hair. And then all at once it seems she's taking the lead, pushing him back against the couch and scooting to lie on top of him.

He gives another moan. She's straddling him, grinding right on his half-hard cock, and he knows that must be deliberate. His Clarke doesn't do anything by accident.

"Did you want something?" She asks with a teasing grin.

"Can we take this to the bedroom? I don't want our first time to be on the couch."

She nods, sits up straight above his hips so she's looking down at him, breasts bouncing above him, her crotch still grinding on his cock. Somehow, he's not surprised to learn she's something of a tease.

"One request – if we're going to the bedroom, you're carrying me there." She demands without self-consciousness.

"I can do that." He agrees easily.

"Thanks."

There's a moment's pause. He spends it trying very hard not to get overexcited at the thought she's maybe been dreaming of him carrying her to bed. He's had a lot of compliments about the strength and definition of his arms before now, he muses. Maybe Clarke's into the arms, too.

"You going to let me up, Clarke?" He prompts her. She's still sitting on top of him.

"You could lift me." She counters, brow quirked.

Well, then. That's him told. He sits up towards her, watches her face grow hot as she stares at his stomach muscles while he moves. And then he tightens his arms around her and scoops her up off the couch.

She _is_ into the arms. He's becoming pretty convinced of that, here. She's gripping at his biceps while he carries her carefully towards his room. She's pressing kisses to his forehead, too, and to the rumpled mess of his hair and frankly to just about everything she can reach.

They arrive at his room, and he hesitates for a moment. He lifts stuff at the gym, sure, and he's occasionally given Clarke or his sister a piggy back. But he's never carried anyone to bed before now, and it's only just occurring to him that the bed is quite low down and he's currently got Clarke settled high up on his hips and he's not entirely confident he has the strength and control to set her down on the bed without dropping her.

It'll be fine. This is his best friend, who is miraculously into him. He doesn't need to be nervous.

He shifts her in his arms, starts lowering her towards the bed.

"Hold onto me." He instructs her, hoping it sounds more _sexy_ -firm than like a boring logistical order.

She seems happy enough. She's clinging to his shoulders, and then she's safely on the bed without mishap. Success.

He slips out of his trousers and eases hers off, too, before he joins her. He tugs her panties out of the way as well. They're perfectly sweet serviceable pink panties, but he's not excited about them in the same way he's excited about the bra.

Yeah, he might have an obsession with her breasts. Whatever. It's probably fine.

"Yours too." She tells him, tugging at the waistband of his boxers.

He's not going to argue with that. He sheds them quickly, tosses them away to be retrieved later.

And then he gets back to making out enthusiastically with Clarke.

They kiss mindlessly for a long time. It's just that – _mindless_ in the best possible way, all sensuality and sensation and nothing that needs considering too hard. There's something about it which is just utterly comfortable, totally easy and relaxed. They already know each other pretty damn well, of course, and Bellamy is pleasantly surprised by just how much of that carries across into what they're doing now. He can read her body language in bed as well as he can read it on the couch, it seems. He can interpret her breathy gasps just as well as he usually interprets her confident words.

Clarke breaks first. Bellamy isn't at all surprised by that, because she's never been a terribly patient woman. So when she apparently decides that she wants to move things up a gear, when she rolls on top of him and straddles his hips, he simply gives her a nod and an encouraging smile.

"You good?" She asks.

"Yeah. Great." He swallows, tries to decide how much emotional honesty during sex is too much. "I'm so happy we're doing this, Clarke."

She's pleased he said that. He can tell from the broad smile spreading across her cheeks. "Me too." She says simply.

It's time to try something, he figures. It's time to take off that bra at last, have her tits hanging loose above him. He unhooks the clasp, sets the purple lace carefully on the bed beside them. On a logical level, he knows she has many more bras of this genre. But he can't bear to throw it carelessly aside.

It turns out that he's even more obsessed with Clarke's naked breasts than he was with them in that bra. He reaches up to cup them with both hands, and sure enough they are too big for his grasp, spilling heavily over his palms, making his cock jump to attention ever harder.

"I like it when you squeeze them." She offers helpfully.

Right. He can work with that. He presses them gently between his fingers, hears her gasp a little.

"Yeah. Like that. Or – harder."

"OK. Sure." He gives another squeeze, is rewarded with a small moan followed by a large grin.

She gets on with it, then. She sinks down onto the length of him, starts rocking her hips and building a rhythm. She's going a little too fast for him, too soon, and he's worried he's going to come without getting chance to enjoy the build up in exquisite detail. Should he say something? He doesn't want to knock her confidence or ruin the moment.

"We're not in a rush. I'm not going anywhere." He tells her, trying for a light tone.

"Sorry." She mutters, eyes fixed on his chest. "I just – yeah. Is it bad that I'm already close?"

He still has his hands on her breasts, so he squeezes them in reassurance. Also just because she likes having them squeezed, it turns out, and to be honest he really likes squeezing them too.

"No. That's really hot." He admits honestly. "It's only me being selfish. If you go slower I'll get to enjoy it for longer."

She snorts. "Selfish? You?"

Yeah. That's a thing she teases him about a lot, actually. Apparently she thinks he needs to practise putting himself first more often. Mostly it bugs him a little when she mentions it, because it's just part of his personality at this point, but in this moment it makes him feel a warm rush of affection for her. She hasn't left her personality at the bedroom door – rather, she is still his best friend even as she's riding his cock.

She slows it down slightly, now he's said what he said. Apparently she really does want him to learn to be more selfish. She keeps her strokes a little longer, groaning low and loud as she moves above him.

She's _definitely_ into the arms, he decides. She's gripping tight to his biceps as if they're a life raft.

Even with the slower strokes, he knows he's not going to last long. This is everything he's been dreaming of for years – and it is more, because he knows that they plan on being a very functional couple, rather than simply having some one night stand that will ruin their friendship. All in all, it's a bit overwhelming, and he's struggling to cling to the threads of his self control.

Clarke's going to get there first. Her eyes are closed, her head tipped back and her breasts thrust forward into his hands as she moves faster and ever faster. She's gasping for breath, now, choking out a seemingly random string of endearments and expletives as she goes.

And then she's there, going suddenly still above him, her face set in the most beautiful grimace of pleasure he's ever seen.

He's close, but he's not frustrated when she stops moving. He's too excited about gazing at her blissed-out face, feeling the way she grinds against him to tease out the last few aftershocks. He could quite happily lie here and stare at her all night.

She doesn't give him that chance. The moment she's collected herself she's moving again, grinning down at him as she rides him for just a handful more seconds, just enough to tip him over the edge.

He gasps out her name as he comes. He figures he might be embarrassed about that, later. But right now he's only dizzy with pleasure.

Clarke stays put for a few moments, when they're both done. She sits there, looking down at him, not clutching at his biceps any more but rather running her hands up and down his arms.

"You good?" He asks her simply.

"Perfect."

He smiles, tucks a strand of slightly sweaty hair behind her ear. He can't quite believe that just happened. Less than an hour ago he was frosting miniature yule logs and fretting about Clarke, and now she's straddling him in bed.

It's been a good Christmas Eve.

It gets even better. She climbs carefully off him, snuggles into his side for a cuddle. Bellamy holds her tight, pressing occasional kisses to the crown of her head, wondering how on Earth he got this lucky. The sex was great, sure, but in some ways he's craved this even more. Just to lie in bed with Clarke and know that they're going to stay by each other's side, no matter what.

"I knew we'd make a good couple." Clarke tells him smugly as she lies there.

"Yeah." He swallows. "I guess I was nervous about it. We're so different on the surface of it. And I'd be devastated if this went wrong."

"This isn't going to go wrong." She says, and she sounds utterly certain of it. "You've been the most important person in my life for years. There's no way that changes. Sleeping together is just going to be some extra fun."

He smiles into her hair. He can agree with that – this has definitely been a good-sized dose of extra fun.

Minutes pass. Clarke's breathing grows softer, slower. Bellamy can feel himself starting to doze off, too, but there's just one more thing he feels the need to say before he succumbs to sleep.

"I love you." He whispers. He hopes she can hear that he doesn't just mean it in the platonic way he's been pretending to mean it for all this time. They say it to each other about three times a week, but it hits different, tonight.

"I love you, too." She murmurs right back at him. "Romantically and platonically and everything in between."

Well, then. That's that settled. He holds her a little tighter, presses one last kiss to the crown of her head and prepares to sleep. Outside a church bell chimes, ringing in Christmas Day. It's fitting, Bellamy thinks. It fits the rather celebratory mood he's in, right now. Sure, a surgeon and a librarian might not have much in common on the face of it. They might have different backgrounds, hobbies, and careers.

But he knows that Clarke really means it, when she says they have all the things in common that matter to her. They share an address, and a moral compass, and it seems like they're on course to share a life.

As punchlines go, he's certainly heard worse.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
